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Day 4: The Giro Goes Missing

This Dutch cycling club stayed in our hotel at Cefalu. They are riding the whole Giro route–one day ahead of the Giro. They will never actually see the Giro!

Monday we awoke to cool temps and clear skies ready to welcome the Giro teams to town. Bike teams typically do an easy 2 hour ride on rest days to keep riders’ legs loose and metabolism humming. We anticipated they would take to the coastal road, as it is the only flattish option in Cefalu.

Puzzlingly, we saw little sign of the Giro. We soon learned that Joey Rosskopf and Team BMC were in a hotel 1.5 hours up the coast in Palermo. Cefalu seemed entirely normal—no signage, no bustle, no banners, no cycling team buses. Did we have the wrong place or wrong date? Are we so cycling-myopic that we don’t realize most Italians don’t care about the Giro?

We split up for our day’s ride with Howie, Todd, Rick and Charles heading away from the coast for a 45 mi., 4,500 ft mountain loop and Mike, Pat and I riding along the coast to San Stefano, a town known for its ceramics (45 mi., 1,800 ft). Eventually, we saw a couple pink road markers, a scattering of cyclists, then an Italian team, spinning along the coastal road.

In the evening, we strolled down to the waterfront to see a line of pink VIP tents, a stage, and a few vans selling T-shirts and hats—but few people. That was it. We decided a 1.5 hour drive at the end of the day was too far to meet up with Joey so we wished him good luck and promised to cheer for him on Tuesday’s Mt. Etna finish.

The Mediterranean was our constant companion.

Eventually, we saw telltale evidence of the Giro. Pink (“rosa”) is the Giro’s signature color.

Gulls, like us, enjoying the sea breeze.

Beer time in Sant Stefano.

An electric train (tram-style) runs along the coast for 10 miles. The coast is the only flat terrain we’ve seen on Sicily, and with so much coast, Sicilians don’t value it in the same way Floridians, say, do.

Thanks for all your comments, Lenny! Wish you were here. I took a selfie at the Mt. Etna Giro finish wearing my Lazy Hiker hat–but the sun messed me up and I don’t know that I can salvage the photo. Lazy Hiker is everywhere!